Oil Industry Transcript

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If
you’re going to talk about Texas, you’ve got to talk about oil. The booms and
the busts, the cars and the roads, the past and the future.

When
the oil booms of the early 1900s started in Texas, the soon-to-be called
Bankhead Highway provided important access to the oilfields, both for labor and
supplies. Trucks that needed oil and gas
transported men to work the derricks. The fruit of their labor was hauled back
to refineries that turned it back into gas for those same trucks.

But
the huge number of workers and their vehicles strained the infrastructure of
the roads. Soon towns like Eastland, Ranger, and Cisco were growing
astronomically along the Bankhead Highway. And it all came to a screeching halt
… any day rain turned the dusty dirt roads into muddy disasters.

What
would you do if your town were enjoying an oil boom and the roads jeopardized
the “liquid gold” that flowed from your fields?

You’d
likely do what a lot of Texas boom towns did: Invest in the Bankhead Highway.
Pave the road, build embankments, and improve the bridges.

And
the investment paid off. Hotels, service
stations, and restaurants—sprouted up along the route adding to the local
coffers. They paid particular attention to the needs of the oil industry,
aligning the route to make travel between the oil fields and their impressive,
in-town office buildings as convenient as possible.

The
Bankhead Highway made it easier for ambitious men to make money and make it
fast. Boom. And when the oil dried up
and the supporting businesses were no longer needed? A bust. A cycle that
continues.

But the roads remain. And today, they still
bring people and prosperity to Texas boomtowns.